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Topic: B&SR 7 (Read 72282 times)

To follow-up on the cab discussion - If the original cab was wood was any consideration given to replicating the original as-built cab as it was delivered as opposed to replicating the non-authentic Edaville cab? Seems like it would of presented a good opportunity to back-date the locomotive to achieve more historical authenticity.

To follow-up on the cab discussion - If the original cab was wood was any consideration given to replicating the original as-built cab as it was delivered as opposed to replicating the non-authentic Edaville cab? Seems like it would of presented a good opportunity to back-date the locomotive to achieve more historical authenticity.

I believe the primary reasons were cost and available labor.

The parts that were destroyed in the fire were all vertical members, the roof section was saved because it had been relocated to another part of the yard when we took the boiler off. Replacing those was considered cheaper and easier since we already had all the tools/skills for welding, which only meant acquiring steel.

Nobody on the steam crew (both now and when the project started in 2008) are skilled carpenters; we're all welders, machinists, or laborers. The restoration crew in the museum (some of the real heroes of the collection) needs to spend a lot of time on cars, so asking them to build us a cab from the ground up would have been asking them to prioritize our (steam) needs over the museums. Without them, most of the cars that we use today wouldn't be in half as good the shape they're currently in.

While we're not re-creating the original cab, we ARE taking steps to correct some of the wrongs of the Edaville cab, too. The replacement cab had a piece of black painted plywood across the top of the boiler between the windows. We intend to fabricate a center section of the forward facing wall that will resemble the original, complete with windows. We're also doing away with Edaville's practice of welding the cab frame to the tank. This way we can separate the tank, cab, or both from the frame for work.

I heard/read that #7 is expected to be completed by early spring. That is awesome news. Hope to keep updates on the progress, as I'm sure many of us would stop in to see her run again. It would be cool to see her pull a freight train with the tank car, box car, flanger, and caboose.

Early spring 2015??? That doesn't seem possible to me. From the photos I've seen on Facebook, the boiler hasn't even been mounted yet, and they're still working on the tender tank. I think we all want to have her running again soon (and a genuine B&SR freight consist with tank, flanger, and caboose would be amazing!), but I don't see that happening before 2016 at the earliest.

That was a bit of over-exuberance on the part of one of the younger admins of the B&SR 7 facebook page. With the speed that the 7 project has gone at times over the years, you can understand his excitement.

The actual estimate for the BOILER is early spring. The firebox and mud ring are expected to be in the boiler this week. There's one more work session this coming weekend in Boothbay to ream out the mud ring holes before the boiler goes south for heat treating. It should be back a couple weeks later for rivets, stays, and tubes, which will be a combined MNG/Boothbay effort up at the Boothbay shop.

There's actually not that much left to do on the locomotive OTHER than the boiler work. The running gear wasn't taken apart, the tank's just about ready for final attachment and painting, the cab is just about finished. Most of what's left for us in Portland is little things until the boiler shows up.

The running gear was far enough forward in the engine house that none of the pins or rods were warped/damaged before the fire crews were able to get there. The heaviest damage to the locomotive in the fire was from the area right next to the fireman's door and further back, which is where the old paint, grease, solvent container was (it obviously didn't do it's job since it was constantly left open in those days).

You can kinda see in the picture I attached where the locomotive was relative to that container. The workbench behind it actually slowed the fire and shielded the engine for a little bit before the fire got to that, too. That survived fairly intact underneath (but still junk) so you have an idea of where the hottest fire was.

This also wasn't exactly a brick building that burned down around 7. There wasn't much material above the engine to fall and cause any significant damage that way.